Lassiter

60 Living a Lie

Castiel wished me bad luck and left. In a few minutes, the courtroom would be open for business. Nothing good would happen this afternoon. It seldom does on the state’s side of the case. One of Ziegler’s employees would take the stand. She was yet another “stalking witness,” having seen Amy lurking in his office building lobby a few days before the shooting. Then a lab tech would testify that shoeprints in the mud of a construction site next to Ziegler’s house matched the running shoes found in Amy’s motel room. Finally, a cop would tell the jury about Amy’s stunt outside the Grand Jury chambers. The maraschino cherry on top of that sundae would be her threat: “Charlie Ziegler killed Krista! If you won’t do something about it, I will.” Like I said, not a great day for the defense.

Tomorrow, the courthouse would be dark. Budget woes stopping the wheels of justice two days each month. The following day, Charlie Ziegler would say his piece. When he finished, the case would either be won or lost.

I started cleaning up the defense table, returning useless papers to their folders. That’s when I spotted Castiel’s solid gold cigarette lighter. He’d left it on the defense table. I flipped it open. Inside was an inscription:

“Para el Judio Maravilloso, del Mulato Lindo.”

“To the marvelous Jew, from the pretty mulatto.”

The pretty mulatto was General Fulgencio Batista, a nickname he’d acquired in his playboy youth. The marvelous Jew was Lansky.

Castiel had lied to me.

The lighter was a gift to Meyer Lansky, not to Bernard Castiel, Alex’s father.

It made sense. Batista, the Cuban strongman, would be more likely to honor Lansky, the casino owner who split profits with him, than Lansky’s hired help, the guy who delivered the cash. But why would Alex lie about it? And how did he end up with Lansky’s cigarette lighter?

I remembered something Castiel told me. Lansky promised him a hundred bucks if he proved he was a brave little boy.

“He told me to carve my name under the judge’s bench.”

I pictured nine-year-old Alex Castiel, his face scrunched in concentration, both hands on the Swiss Army knife, gouging at the wood, making his mark, a sacred secret between himself and the most notorious gangster of his time. But was it true?

I scurried to the front of the courtroom, hopped the three steps to the judge’s elevated throne, and pulled back her chair. I ducked under the bench and flicked on the lighter so I could see. I brushed away cobwebs and swept dust off the wood.

There it was, in the corner, carved with a surprisingly steady hand. As I read the name, I felt my stomach heave as if an elevator plunged several floors. A sense of embarrassment, too, as if I were a Peeping Tom.

I looked hard at the letters etched into the mahogany, believing that some of my questions about Alex Castiel had just been answered. Then I ran a finger across the torn wood and said the name aloud: “Alex Lansky.”